climbing up
by sparklyems
Summary: i've gotta keep trying. gotta keep my head held high. — kibaino. post war.


i don't even know if this fandom is alive anymore but my love for ino yamanaka is. she will always and forever be my girl. write drunk & don't edit kids. also for those not w anxiety/experience w it/etc alprazolam is xanax.

idk about the rating.

(also do Not mix xanax and alcohol like ino does. extrem. not safe.)

disclaimer i don't own naruto.

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See, after the war? On the outside, Ino looked fucking perfect; blond hair in a flawless ponytail, not a goddamn strand out of place, because, thanks, Sakura, but while you may be stronger she'll _always_ be prettier; blue eyes straight ahead and fearless, no matter what was ahead; the head of the Yamanaka Clan, after shouting and screaming with the elders. Ino's nineteen and typically wouldn't have taken over for at least another decade, but, hey, war ages people, especially her goddamned dead father in the goddamned ground.

She's bitter some days. Some (most) days Ino gets a cheap bottle of wine or three in the morning and heads out to the graveyard and stays there all day. She's joined by a rotating cast at times - Naruto, who takes her wine and downs the bottle and doesn't feel a damn thing, and then she yells at him to go buy her more, which he does, because he's Naruto. Then they sit and reminisce; her dad, dead just as they began to truly bond; his parents, finally found in the course of a war they were all born to fight. Tenten and Lee; Lee won't drink, he's too stoic, but Tenten will happily pass the bottle back and forth with her. Lee watches them, mostly, but when they finally start crying (Ino over her dad. Tenten, the love she had but didn't and then it was too. Fucking. Late.) he joins them, pulling both girls into a hug they use their drunkness as an excuse to stay in.

And Kiba. Kiba didn't lose anyone in the war, except Neji, but they were never particularly close anyways. (A note from a drunk girl, watching Kiba linger over Neji's name: Ino mourns him privately, no matter how much alcohol she tips down her throat. They weren't supposed to really know each other, outside of the Konoha Twelve, but ANBU has its ways of getting close. Not even Sakura knows that, though, because Ino covers the tattoo with makeup, has since fifteen, and Neji never wore long sleeves. But.)

"What are you doing here, dogbreath?" Ino thinks she might be slurring. She's not sure, so she raises the bottle — when did she finish half of it? when did she get two empty bottles next to her? — and tips it down her throat, holding her head high and her throat straight, drinking until Kiba forcefully removes it from her hand. Akamaru nestles against her leg, and she buries a hand in his fur by rote.

He drinks the rest without flinching — she has to admire that, because it's _cheap _cheap wine, more vinegar than alcohol - and then flings it to the ground. "I'm here to make sure you don't drown your organs. Tenten and Naruto drink with you, but Sakura, she knows, and she's thisclose," Kiba holds his fingers together, so she knows."If Sakura comes out here, Ino, she'll murder you. She'll fix the damage you've done to your liver, and then kill you. You know that?"

Ino flinches, barely, but his Inuzuka eyes catch it. She thinks. She can't really see straight. Or sideways, or anything. "Go the hell away. Actually, go buy me more wine, since you fucking finished mine, and then leave."

Kiba shakes his head at her. "Ino, Ino, Ino. You were the most perfect of us. ANBU at fifteen" - how does he know that, how the absolute _fuck_ \- "that gorgeous hair, and those eyes—"

"Fuck _off_, Kiba."

Her words don't have the intended effect. He leans down, scoops her into his arms and somehow Ino can't resist. (Too drunk? Too goddamn done with herself, with everyone? Who knows. It's not her.)

"Come on. We're going home."

She doesn't remember anything after that.

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See, after the war? On the inside, Ino was all goddamned shades of fucked up. Which, well, hell, what shinobi wasn't? She stayed awake all night and only made it through the day by way of coffee and some pills she'd filched from the medical ward of ANBU (Alprazolam, they read. Ino'd had medical training, but she didn't recognize them, though Sakura would have; they read 'for anxiety' and that was good enough for her) She downs them three at a go and then chugs coffee, going off to whatever ANBU has her doing that day or just off to drinking in the graveyard. Depended on the day. She shook, when she was sure nobody but her plants could see her — all night, she curls up next to the succulents on her windowsill and every available surface, which survived the months and months and months of war even without her, wishing she could be that strong. She knows she's lost weight, even if she won't admit it to herself, because she barely eats. Her diet is mostly alcohol these days.

Kiba must say something to Sakura because after being drunk in the graveyard her next memory is waking in her bed, her best friend for life in the chair next it, feet up and drinking coffee (By the smell, at least. Delicious.) out of _Ino's_ favourite mug. She tries to protest, and garbled noises emerge.

"Here," Sakura says drily, and Ino hopes she's giving her coffee, "drink this. All of it." She all but forces a cup into Ino's hands, with probably a lot more force than necessary, and Ino drinks it without spilling a drop, princess that she is.

"Oh what the _fuck_ Sakura." Ino spits part of it over the other side of her bed, barely making it up straight to not choke. She thinks she catches Sakura smirking, but when she turns, her best friend's face is clear.

"Good. You're awake. We need to talk." And when Sakura says talk Ino knows she means _talk_ and she's tempted to genjutsu her way out.

Except she thinks she needs this. Maybe.

"I'm spending too much time at the graveyard?" Ino tries, hoping to get out of this easily. Sakura just gives her a _look_.

Ino sighs. Looks at her blankets, her plants, anything to not have this even though she maybe possibly needs it. Then she gives up.

"Drinking." The word is barely audible from her lips, but Sakura still nods.

"You need to stop." It's a full sentence. No stops. Ino still hears it as three parts — you. need to. stop. Maybe that's saying something.

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Ino tries. She's not one hundred percent sure, never is even with her training, but she's pretty fucking sure Sakura (And possibly. Maybe. Kiba.) tells every shopkeeper who sells alcohol to not sell to her no matter what she does or tries or shows.

It's hard. The first two days, she's okay; but in the days after that, she doesn't show for work, instead huddling in her bed, and Ibiki never shows at her door. Sakura appears sometimes, hot hands on her cold cold cold back. She could swear she feels fur against her side but can never see it with her own eyes, and when she wakes she's always alone in her double bed, clutching the purple blankets to herself when her muscles allow it.

Then, finally.

Her muscles, day by day by day by day — release and she can move on her own and god she forgot how good it felt to move on her own. She's not cold anymore, either; Ino flips off her blankets, all four, to find herself in a small pair of panties (Purple. Obviously. Not that anyone needs to know.) and not much else and _that_, exactly, is when she realizes Kiba fucking Inuzuka is in the corner of her room. She tries to move off the mattress soundlessly but of goddamned course the old thing creaks, she has got to get it replaced, and his eyes snap open.

They go wider, she sees (of course she does. her eyes are locked on him because he's an intruder in her room. no other reason.), when they lock onto her naked breasts. "Um." He swallows, visibly, and when her eyes dip south momentarily (she's trained to gather information. that's why. again, no other reason.), there's a sizable bulge.

Very sizable.

"Ino," he stumbles, which he shouldn't. "You're, um. Naked?"

She decides, at that moment, to go into her goddamned prime. Information gathering is seduction, no matter what; and she's a pro. A tilt of her back and arch of her neck and she can almost see him stop breathing. She's fucking gorgeous, Ino has always known that.

"Nearly. Do you want to help with the rest?"

Kiba Inuzuka is the only man Ino has ever seen hesitate on that request. She's fucked dozens of men since she joined ANBU to get priceless information, and all of them have looked at her like she was priceless, and never have they stopped to consider her before pouncing. Kiba, meanwhile. Kiba. He seems happy only to look, and Ino's not even sure if she's processed her question until—

He's on her almost faster than she can process, which, truly, is saying something, because Genma had taught her something about speed, but then Genma is out of her mind because one of his hands are on her breasts and one heading south and god, fucking hell, she must be drunk, because there's no way she's ever earned this in her life.

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In the end, Ino quits ANBU. She does it face-to-face with Ibiki-sensei, telling him she just. can't. anymore.

He seems to accept it. Anyways, since the end of the war, ANBU hasn't been needed as much; mostly, they've been needed for escorts, with the number of jounins that died. And when she tells him what she's planning to do, Ino almost thinks she sees a smile on her mentor's scarred face.

The Yamanaka clan, small yet powerful, is rich. Ino, recovered from her alcoholism, Kiba's forever strength and Sakura's eternal willpower by her side alongside her goddamned _sparkle_, walks into the elders' meeting, and announces her plan. Surprisingly, they don't argue. The vote, first time over, is in her favour; and just like that, she has funding.

Ino takes Kiba, Sakura, Lee, Tenten, and Naruto with her when she goes building shopping. "We all need it. All twelve of us," and when she sees Tenten flinch, Ino grabs her hand, knows she's still not used to Sasuke being back and taking Neji's number. (but he never will.) They wander Konoha for a few hours, until finally Naruto stops.

"What about that one." It's not a question. His voice is almost dry, and wordlessly, four water pouches offer up, and he waves off. They walk in; it's spacious, with several upstairs layers, and Ino thinks, 'I could work here.'

(She finds out, later, much later; this is the Uzumaki clan property. Naruto would be the only living claimant, and when she approaches him, he tells her, "It's in much better goddamn use with you, Ino. Just promise me you'll always do good." All she can do is grab him in a hug and try to not break down while he does so in her arms.)

Clan Yamanaka buys it without a word other than "yes". It turns out to be five stories tall (After seeing Naruto's eyes on the walls, all Ino can think is that is that it would have been amazing for a big family.) and she moves in on the top floor, carrying her plants, Kiba and Akumaru toting her mattress.

Ino puts up the sign three weeks after moving in.

"Yamanaka Counseling Services"

All of the Konoha twelve gather beneath the sign. Kiba holds her hand tight on one side, and on the other, Ino grasps Sakura's. None of them would ever admit it, but they form a chain beneath the doorway, hand in hand in hand.

They're fractured, broken, from Orochimaru, from the war, from deaths they never should have had to face. Everything has shaped, them, but Ino will help them heal.


End file.
